Maryam Mirzakhani Becomes First Ever Woman To Win Maths Most Prestigious Prize

For the first time in history, a woman has won the most prestigious prize in mathematics.

Maryam Mirzakhani was awarded the Fields Medal, marking the first time in the award’s 80-year history that the accolade has gone to a woman.

An Iranian professor working at Stanford University in California, Mirzakhani’s expertise lay in studying geometric structures on surfaces, as well as their deformations.

According to The Guardian, within the maths community, her work is considered having “breathtaking scope [and being] technically superb and boldly ambitious.”

For her troubles, she’ll collect 15,000 Canadian dollars (AUD $15,746).

The Fields medal is awarded by the International Mathematical Union every four years to individuals under the age of 40.

Three others were also recognised in this most recent prize-giving, including Austria’s Martin Hairer, Canadian-American Manjul Bhargava and Brazilian-French researcher Artur Avila.